And his father was ready for him, for he knew what had happened at the
inn. Mrs. Webster, on her nightly hunt for the man she had sworn to
honour and obey, having drawn several public-houses blank, ran him to
earth at last in the bar-room of the Red Lion. "Yes, yes, Kirsty," he
cried, eager to prevent her tongue, "I know I'm a blagyird; but oh, the
terrible thing that has happened!" He so possessed her with his graphic
tale that he was allowed to go chuckling back to his potations, while
she ran hot-foot to the Green Shutters.
"Eh, poo-oor Mrs. Gourlay; and oh, your poo-oor boy, too; and eh, that
brute Tam Brodie—" Even as she came through the door the voluble
clatter was shrilling out the big tidings, before she was aware of
Gourlay's presence. She faltered beneath his black glower.
"Go on!" he said, and ground it out of her.
"The damned sumph!" he growled, "to let Brodie hammer him!" For a
moment, it is true, his anger was divided, stood in equipoise, even
dipped "Brodie-ward." "I've an account to sattle wi'
him
!" he thought
grimly. "When
I
get my claw on his neck, I'll teach him better than to
hit a Gourlay! I wonder," he mused, with a pride in which was neither
doubt nor wonder—"I wonder will he fling the father as he flang the
son!" But that was the instinct of his blood, not enough to make him
pardon John. On the contrary, here was a new offence of his offspring.
On the morrow Barbie would be burning with another affront which he had
put upon the name of Gourlay. He would waste no time when he came back,
be he drunk or be he sober; he would strip the flesh off him.
"Jenny," he said, "bring me the step-ladder."
He would pass the time till the prodigal came back—and he was almost
certain to come back, for where could he go in Barbie?—he would pass
the time by trying to improve the appearance of the house. He had spent
money on his house till the last, and even now had the instinct to
embellish it. Not that it mattered to him now; still he could carry out
a small improvement he had planned before. The kitchen was ceiled in
dark timber, and on the rich brown rafters there were wooden pegs and
bars, for the hanging of Gourlay's sticks and fishing-rods. His gun was
up there, too, just above the hearth. It had occurred to him about a
month ago, however, that a pair of curving steel rests, that would catch
the glint from the fire, would look better beneath his gun than the dull
pegs, where it now lay against a joist. He might as well pass the time
by putting them up.
The bringing of the steps, light though they were, was too much for
Janet's weak frame, and she stopped in a fit of coughing, clutching the
ladder for support, while it shook to her spasms.
"Tuts, Jenny, this'll never do," said Gourlay, not unkindly. He took
the ladder away from her and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Away to
your bed, lass. You maunna sit so late."
But Janet was anxious for her brother, and wanted to sit up till he came
home. She answered, "Yes," to her father, but idled discreetly, to
consume the time.
"Where's my hammer?" snarled Gourlay.
"Is it no by the clock?" said his wife wearily. "Oh, I remember, I
remember! I gied it to Mrs. Webster to break some brie-stone, to rub the
front doorstep wi'. It'll be lying in the porch."
"Oh, ay, as usual," said Gourlay—"as usual."
"John!" she cried in alarm, "you don't mean to take down the gun, do
ye?"
"Huts, you auld fule, what are you skirling for? D'ye think I mean to
shoot the dog? Set back on your creepie and make less noise, will ye?"
Ere he had driven a nail in the rafter John came in, and sat down by the
fire, taking up the great poker, as if to cover his nervousness. If
Gourlay had been on the floor he would have grappled with him there and
then. But the temptation to gloat over his victim from his present
height was irresistible. He went up another step, and sat down on the
very summit of the ladder, his feet resting on one of the lower rounds.
The hammer he had been using was lying on his thigh, his hand clutched
about its haft.
"Ay, man, you've been taking a bit walk, I hear."
John made no reply, but played with the poker. It was so huge, owing to
Gourlay's whim, that when it slid through his fingers it came down on
the muffled hearthstone with a thud like a pavior's hammer.
"I'm told you saw the Deacon on your rounds? Did he compliment you on
your return?"
At the quiet sneer a lightning-flash showed John that Allardyce had
quizzed him too. For a moment he was conscious of a vast self-pity.
"Damn them, they're all down on me," he thought. Then a vindictive rage
against them all took hold of him, tense, quivering.
"Did you see Thomas Brodie when ye were out?" came the suave inquiry.
"I saw him," said John, raising fierce eyes to his father's. He was
proud of the sudden firmness in his voice. There was no fear in it, no
quivering. He was beyond caring what happened to the world or him.
"Oh, you saw him," roared Gourlay, as his anger leapt to meet the anger
of his son. "And what did he say to you, may I speir?... Or maybe I
should speir what he did.... Eh?" he grinned.
"By God, I'll kill ye," screamed John, springing to his feet, with the
poker in his hand. The hammer went whizzing past his ear. Mrs. Gourlay
screamed and tried to rise from her chair, her eyes goggling in terror.
As Gourlay leapt, John brought the huge poker with a crash on the
descending brow. The fiercest joy of his life was the dirl that went up
his arm as the steel thrilled to its own hard impact on the bone.
Gourlay thudded on the fender, his brow crashing on the rim.
At the blow there had been a cry as of animals from the two women. There
followed an eternity of silence, it seemed, and a haze about the place;
yet not a haze, for everything was intensely clear; only it belonged to
another world. One terrible fact had changed the Universe. The air was
different now—it was full of murder. Everything in the room had a new
significance, a sinister meaning. The effect was that of an unholy
spell.
As through a dream Mrs. Gourlay's voice was heard crying on her God.
John stood there, suddenly weak in his limbs, and stared, as if
petrified, at the red poker in his hand. A little wisp of grizzled hair
stuck to the square of it, severed, as by scissors, between the sharp
edge and the bone. It was the sight of that bit of hair that roused him
from his stupor—it seemed so monstrous and horrible, sticking all by
itself to the poker. "I didna strike him so hard," he pleaded, staring
vaguely, "I didna strike him so hard." Now that the frenzy had left him,
he failed to realize the force of his own blow. Then with a horrid fear
on him, "Get up, faither," he entreated; "get up, faither! O man, you
micht get up!"
Janet, who had bent above the fallen man, raised an ashen face to her
brother, and whispered hoarsely, "His heart has stopped, John; you have
killed him!"
Steps were heard coming through the scullery. In the fear of discovery
Mrs. Gourlay shook off the apathy that held her paralyzed. She sprang
up, snatched the poker from her son, and thrust it in the embers.
"Run, John; run for the doctor," she screamed.—"O Mrs. Webster, Mrs.
Webster, I'm glad to see ye. Mr. Gourlay fell from the top o' the
ladder, and smashed his brow on the muckle fender."
"Mother!" came the startled whisper, "mother! O woman, waken and speak
to me!"
No comforting answer came from the darkness to tell of a human being
close at hand; the girl, intently listening, was alone with her fear.
All was silent in the room, and the terror deepened. Then the far-off
sound in the house was heard once more.
"Mother—mother, what's that?"
"What is it, Janet?" came a feebly complaining voice; "what's wrong wi'
ye, lassie?"
Janet and her mother were sleeping in the big bedroom, Janet in the
place that had been her father's. He had been buried through the day,
the second day after his murder. Mrs. Gourlay had shown a feverish
anxiety to get the corpse out the house as soon as possible; and there
had been nothing to prevent it. "Oh," said Doctor Dandy to the gossips,
"it would have killed any man to fall from such a height on to the sharp
edge of yon fender. No; he was not quite dead when I got to him. He
opened his eyes on me, once—a terrible look—and then life went out of
him with a great quiver."
Ere Janet could answer her mother she was seized with a racking cough,
and her hoarse bark sounded hollow in the silence. At last she sat up
and gasped fearfully, "I thocht—I thocht I heard something moving!"
"It would be the wind," plained her mother; "it would just be the wind.
John's asleep this strucken hour and mair. I sat by his bed for a lang
while, and he prigged and prayed for a dose o' the whisky ere he won
away. He wouldna let go my hand till he slept, puir fallow. There's an
unco fear on him—an unco fear. But try and fa' owre," she soothed her
daughter. "That would just be the wind ye heard."
"There's nae wind!" said Janet.
The stair creaked. The two women clung to each other, gripping tight
fingers, and their hearts throbbed like big separate beings in their
breasts. There was a rustle, as of something coming; then the door
opened, and John flitted to the bedside with a candle in his hand. Above
his nightshirt his bloodless face looked gray.
"Mother," he panted, "there's something in my room!"
"What is it, John?" said his mother, in surprise and fear.
"I—I thocht it was himsell! O mother, I'm feared, I'm feared! O mother,
I'm
feared
!" He sang the words in a hysterical chant, his voice rising
at the end.
The door of the bedroom clicked. It was not a slamming sound, only the
door went to gently, as if some one closed it. John dropped the candle
from his shaking hand, and was left standing in the living darkness.
"
Save me!
" he screamed, and leaped into the bed, burrowing down
between the women till his head was covered by the bedclothes. He
trembled so violently that the bed shook beneath them.
"Let me bide wi' ye!" he pleaded, with chattering jaws; "oh, let me bide
wi' ye! I daurna gang back to that room by mysell again."
His mother put her thin arm round him. "Yes, dear," she said; "you may
bide wi' us. Janet and me wouldna let anything harm you." She placed her
hand on his brow caressingly. His hair was damp with a cold sweat. He
reeked of alcohol.
Some one went through the Square playing a concertina. That sound of
the careless world came strangely in upon their lonely tragedy. By
contrast the cheerful, silly noise out there seemed to intensify their
darkness and isolation here. Occasional far-off shouts were heard from
roisterers going home.
Mrs. Gourlay lay staring at the darkness with intent eyes. What horror
might assail her she did not know, but she was ready to meet it for the
sake of John. "Ye brought it on yoursell," she breathed once, as if
defying an unseen accuser.
It was hours ere he slept, but at last a heavy sough told her he had
found oblivion. "He's won owre," she murmured thankfully. At times he
muttered in his sleep, and at times Janet coughed hoarsely at his ear.
"Janet, dinna hoast sae loud, woman! You'll waken your brother."
Janet was silent. Then she choked—trying to stifle another cough.
"Woman," said her mother complainingly, "that's surely an unco hoast ye
hae!"
"Ay," said Janet, "it's a gey hoast."
Next morning Postie came clattering through the paved yard in his
tackety boots, and handed in a blue envelope at the back door with a
business-like air, his ferrety eyes searching Mrs. Gourlay's face as she
took the letter from his hand. But she betrayed nothing to his
curiosity, since she knew nothing of her husband's affairs, and had no
fear, therefore, of what the letter might portend. She received the
missive with a vacant unconcern. It was addressed to "John Gourlay,
Esquire." She turned it over in a silly puzzlement, and, "Janet!" she
cried, "what am I to do wi' this?"
She shrank from opening a letter addressed to her dead tyrant, unless
she had Janet by her side. It was so many years since he had allowed her
to take an active interest in their common life (indeed he never had)
that she was as helpless as a child.
"It's to faither," said Janet. "Shall I waken John?"
"No; puir fellow, let him sleep," said his mother. "I stole in to look
at him enow, and his face was unco wan lying down on the pillow. I'll
open the letter mysell; though, as your faither used to tell me, I never
had a heid for business."
She broke the seal, and Janet, looking over her shoulder, read aloud to
her slower mind:—
"GLASGOW,
March 12, 18—.
"SIR,—We desire once more to call your attention to the fact that
the arrears of interest on the mortgage of your house have not been
paid. Our client is unwilling to proceed to extremities, but unless
you make some arrangement within a week, he will be forced to take
the necessary steps to safeguard his interests.—Yours faithfully,
BRODIE, GURNEY, & YARROWBY."
Mrs. Gourlay sank into a chair, and the letter slipped from her upturned
palm, lying slack upon her knee.
"Janet," she said, appealingly, "what's this that has come on us? Does
the house we live in, the House with the Green Shutters, not belong to
us ainy more? Tell me, lassie. What does it mean?"
"I don't ken," whispered Janet, with big eyes. "Did faither never tell
ye of the bond?"
"He never telled me about anything," cried Mrs. Gourlay, with a sudden
passion. "I was aye the one to be keepit in the dark—to be keepit in
the dark and sore hadden doon. Oh, are we left destitute, Janet—and us
was aye sae muckle thocht o'! And me, too, that's come of decent folk,
and brought him a gey pickle bawbees—am I to be on the parish in my
auld age? Oh,
my
faither,
my
faither!"